Impulsiveness and Dedication
by Peonywinx
Summary: The space jump to the drill will be insanely dangerous, so naturally Sulu volunteers. Chekov makes it a point to monitor Sulu throughout the entire mission so he can ensure his best friend makes it back to the ship alive. Any actual discussion about it comes later.
1. Impulsively Dedicated

_**A/N: This started out as an exploration of what Chekov was thinking during the drill scene in the 2009 movie - because in my headcanon, Chekov and Sulu were already acquainted from their Academy days - given that he was the one monitoring the jump and the one who pulled Kirk and Sulu out of trouble just before they went splat. Then it sort of turned into a bit of a character study as well.**_

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek.  
**

* * *

From the earliest days of their acquaintance, Chekov knew Hikaru Sulu had an impulsive streak. It wasn't that he was reckless, exactly — although he could be on occasion — it was simply that he didn't waste time thinking about the consequences of his actions before he did them. Sulu did not hesitate to throw himself into a situation where he knew he could be of help. In fact, this was how the two of them had met, back at the Academy. Chekov was being harassed by some cadets who thought they could bully him into doing their coursework for them; when they discovered that the slight 15-year-old was not that easy to intimidate, they'd resorted to using their fists to persuade him. Sulu had been walking by and seen what was happening, and he immediately jumped into the fray in Chekov's defense. By the time the brawl ended, Sulu had a black eye, two broken fingers, and an impressive collection of bruises, but the other guys couldn't even stand without falling over. Sulu had faced disciplinary charges from the board for fighting, but he got off relatively lightly because Chekov vehemently insisted that he would probably have had to be hospitalized if it weren't for the Asian cadet. The three bullies, on the other hand, were all kicked out of Starfleet.

That incident was the start of their friendship. For the next fortnight or so, Sulu checked in on Chekov at various random times just to make sure the young Russian wasn't being bothered by anyone else. Chekov, for his part, started making it a point to sit with Sulu in the mess hall during mealtimes, reasoning that if the older cadet insisted on keeping an eye on him, he might as well make it easier for him to do so. Casual small talk over lunches and dinners quickly grew into in-depth discussions about each other's lives and aspirations, and soon the duo were actively seeking each other out to spend more time together in the library, at the gym, wherever. Despite the four-year age difference, they shared such a warm, easy camaraderie that when Chekov's roommate dropped out of the Academy and the Board told him he was too young to room solo, he asked Sulu to move in with him. Sulu agreed without a second thought, gladly giving up his coveted single dorm to bunk with Chekov in the opposite residential block.

Living with Sulu only made it even clearer to Chekov that the pilot-in-training had a bit of a hero complex. Sulu, it seemed, was practically incapable of seeing a problem without stepping in to try to fix it. He had a strong sense of justice that Chekov greatly admired, but the teen sometimes wished Sulu would give just a little more thought to what could occur when he chose to intervene. In over two years of rooming together at the Academy, Chekov had seen Sulu dive into a tempestuous sea in the middle of a hurricane to save someone from drowning, electrocute himself when he seized the controls of a malfunctioning shuttle during a field trip to Mars, keel over from exhaustion after two sleepless nights in the greenhouses trying to derive a botanical cure for a mysterious epidemic, and nearly fail Subspace Mechanics because he skipped a vital exam to help a friend whose brother died suddenly.

Sulu's habit of rushing headlong into things — and the consequences thereof — caused some conflict with his new roommate. While Chekov conceded that a bit of spontaneity was necessary at times, as someone who planned out the trajectory of his life as carefully as he plotted the course for a starship, Sulu's tendency to leap without looking — often in less than desirable circumstances — sometimes grated on his sensibilities. Nevertheless, Chekov knew that behind Sulu's often impetuous actions was an overwhelming desire to help. The Asian had once confided to Chekov that he'd made a spur-of-the-moment decision to join Starfleet because his grandfather had told him that if he really wanted to make a difference on a large scale, it was the best place to be. It was hard to stay annoyed at his friend when Chekov could fully understand where Sulu was coming from with his madcap acts.

Because of his innate compassion for people and his driving desire to help, the harsh lesson of the _Kobayashi Maru_ — wherein there was no way Sulu could rescue the stranded ship without getting his own crew killed by Klingon warbirds — was particularly difficult for Sulu to accept. He ultimately chose to abandon the ship in distress, with the reasoning that there was no point effecting a suicidal rescue mission on the slim chance that he could save the _Kobayashi Maru_. His choice garnered him praise from his instructors for having the fortitude to make a hard decision, and he was considered to be one of the top performers on the test of his year — but Sulu himself agonized over his call long after the simulation was over, even questioning his suitability for Command Track until Chekov firmly and empathetically talked him back to his senses.

Sulu bounced back after that, more determined than ever to do whatever he could to make sure he never ended up in a situation like the _Kobayashi Maru_. By this point Chekov had long since despaired of getting to his friend see the potential hazards of his near-automatic offers to help, and had simply resolved to do whatever he could to watch out for Sulu and make sure he didn't push himself too far.

To his credit, Sulu did know where his strengths lay. When he had nothing to offer to the situation at hand, he was perfectly happy to take a backseat and defer to the experts; but whenever something came up involving astrophysics, botany, swordsmanship, or piloting, Sulu would be the first one to volunteer. He was supremely confident in his abilities — with very good reason — but it wasn't as if he was full of himself. As a matter of fact, most people weren't even aware that he had other areas of expertise outside those required to be a helmsman.

Thus, when Captain Pike asked for officers who were trained in advanced hand-to-hand combat, more than one person on the bridge cast a surprised glance at Sulu when he put his hand up (Chekov, on the other hand, had known exactly what was going to happen the moment Pike started his sentence with the words, "I need…")

"I have training, sir."

Pike eyed him dubiously for a second before he said, "Come with me. Kirk, you too — you're not supposed to be here, anyway. Chekov, you have the conn."

"Aye, sir." The answer came out slightly stammered because the majority of Chekov's attention was on Sulu's retreating form. He had no idea what Pike intended for Sulu and Kirk to do, but anything that required advanced hand-to-hand combat was a risky proposition in his opinion.

Chekov glanced apprehensively at the viewscreen, where the floating remains of the five ships that had preceded the _Enterprise_ to Vulcan were clearly visible, and shuddered.

 _Be safe, Hikaru._

Spock returned to the bridge twelve minutes later, whereupon he took his seat in the captain's chair and proceeded to inform them about Pike's plan. Chekov listened with growing horror as the Acting Captain succinctly outlined the parameters of the away mission to be undertaken by Sulu, Kirk, and Chief Engineer Olson.

"Is everyone clear on the plan?" Spock looked around to check that his message was heard and understood.

With a sense of dread bubbling in his stomach, Chekov raised his hand.

"Yes, Ensign Chekov?"

"Joost to clarify, sir — we will not be able to beam ze away team back onto ze Enterprise unless zhey disable ze drill?"

"That is correct, Ensign. You will be responsible for monitoring their progress."

Chekov numbly let his hand fall. "Aye, zhank you, sir. I understand."

He turned back to the viewscreen, where a new display tracking the movements of the three away team members had popped up. Chekov's gaze instantly locked onto the gold dot labeled _Sulu, Hikaru K_. Sulu was right above Kirk's blue signal, and Olson's red was a little below them; all three were moving steadily downwards at a rate that threatened to make Chekov ill if he thought too much about the mathematics involved. Unfortunately for him, his brain was so used to automatically calculating these sorts of equations that the numbers circled unbidden in his head anyway.

 _Acceleration due to gravity on Earth is 9.8 meters per second squared; on Vulcan the core is denser, so gravity is slightly stronger, about 10.5 meters per second squared…given a starting distance of 30,000 meters above the drill platform, and assuming initial velocity of 0 meters per second, they have a little less than 76 seconds before they hit the platform at 798 meters per second._

Chekov cringed involuntarily. At that speed, none of the away team would be anything more than smears on the platform — but of course, that wouldn't happen, because they had parachutes.

 _If they pull their chutes at 2,000 meters from the platform, that arrests their downward velocity at 767 meters per second…wind drag and air resistance at that point would drop their velocity to approximately 5 meters per second…_

The display emitted a soft beep, diverting Chekov from his thoughts. "Away is entering ze atmosphere, sir," he reported dutifully. "Twenty thousand meters." _33 seconds until impact._

One of the trickiest parts about jumping to a specific point was making sure one actually landed on the target. So far, all three dots seemed to be on course, but the drill platform was small. The slightest deviation could send one of the officers hurtling down to the planet's surface instead…and was it his imagination, or did Sulu's dot now look to be heading for the vertical rather than the horizontal part of the drill?

They were moving at breakneck pace now, the distance updates coming thick and fast. "Approaching ze platform at fifty-eight hundred meters." _8 seconds to impact._

 _"Kirk to_ Enterprise _,"_ the jumper in blue transmitted less than a second later. _"Distance to target: five thousand meters."_

Chekov kept his eyes glued to the screen, and on the gold dot in particular. Sulu was still slightly behind Kirk and Olson, as he had been since the start. "Forty-six hundred meters from ze platform."

Before he'd even finished speaking, Sulu was chipping in with, _"Forty-one hundred meters to target."_

There was no time for even Chekov to crunch numbers now.

 _"Four thousand meters,"_ said Kirk.

Chekov took his eyes off the viewscreen display for an instant to watch the numbers on his computer count down frighteningly rapidly.

 _"Three thousand meters."_ That was Olson, sounding strangely thrilled. Chekov had a sinking feeling the engineer was really going to push his luck.

 _Don't follow his example, Hikaru. Be sensible,_ please _._

 _"Two thousand meters,"_ Kirk reported.

Chekov tensed.

 _"Pull the chute!"_ Sulu ordered.

Chekov let out a breath as he saw the gold dot appear to stop moving for the briefest moment before proceeding down the screen by tiny increments. Kirk's signal did the same half a second later. But Olson's red dot continued speeding downwards, getting dangerously close to the platform.

 _"Two thousand meters."_

 _"Come on, pull your chute, Olson!"_ Kirk urged.

 _"No, not yet! Not yet! Fifteen hundred meters!"_

 _"Olson, open the chute!"_ Sulu screamed at him.

Chekov heard Olson giggle with glee, and he suddenly knew what was going to happen before it did.

 _"Olson, pull your chute!"_ yelled Kirk.

 _"One thousand meters!"_

On Chekov's screen, Olson's signal finally stopped sliding a hair's breadth from the platform's image. Chekov didn't even have time to report it to Spock before the red dot abruptly skewed sideways, curving under the platform, before vanishing completely.

"O-Olson is gone, sir." Chekov's voice was relatively steady, but his emotions were anything but. Kirk and Sulu were still dangling just above the drill, and there was still plenty of opportunity for whatever had happened to Olson (he couldn't tell from up here) to happen to them.

Heart in his throat, Chekov watched as Kirk's signal hovered precariously at the very edge of the platform before the readings stabilized.

"Kirk has landed, sir," he told Spock, before he anxiously turned back to the screen to watch how the final — and to Chekov, the most important — member of the away team fared.

 _Come on, Hikaru._

The sensors detected that another, non-Starfleet, life form had just appeared on the platform — probably from inside the drill — and then, to Chekov's horror, Sulu's still-floating signal veered dramatically of course. Instead of continuing straight down, which would have planted it safely on the platform, the gold dot swerved to one side and started sliding diagonally. Chekov's eyes widened. Sulu was moving faster than a person with a functioning parachute should, but what really terrified him was the fact that Sulu's new trajectory would make him miss the drill altogether. If, as Chekov suspected, something had happened to Sulu's chute, the drop down to Vulcan soil would kill him.

Just like its red predecessor, the gold dot swung under the platform, and Chekov's heart stopped.

 _No!_

But unlike Olson, Sulu didn't disappear from the sensors. Like a pendulum, his golden signal arced to the right, then back to the left. And then, though Chekov had no clue how his friend managed it, Sulu's dot moved _upwards_ to safety.

Chekov didn't dare breathe until he was absolutely sure that Sulu had settled himself firmly on the platform and was going about his mission — but as soon as he was certain of that, only Starfleet discipline kept him from sagging his shoulders in relief.

The most dangerous part of the mission was over. Sulu and Kirk still had to deal with the Romulans defending the drill, but Chekov had no worries about Sulu's katana dispatching them now that his feet were firmly planted. In Chekov's mind, it was only a matter of time — and not very much of it — before Sulu and Kirk disabled the drill and enabled the _Enterprise_ to beam them back.

The two jumpers had removed their headpieces upon landing, so Chekov and the other members of the bridge had no way of knowing what was happening on the drill except for the now-nearly-useless tracking display.

They did know, however, exactly when the drill was deactivated.

"The jamming signal's gone!" Uhura reported from her station. "Transport abilities are reestablished."

A notice had also appeared at Chekov's station, causing him to smile. "Transporter control is reengaged, sir." _Well done, Hikaru!_

"Chekov, run gravitational sensors," Spock ordered. "I want to know what they are doing to the planet."

"Aye, Commander! Ach — Keptin, sorry, Keptin." Chekov was too thankful to be too flustered by his slip. The away team had successfully completed their mission and Sulu would be back on the _Enterprise_ in just a minute or two. Chekov couldn't wait to have him back at his piloting station so he could congratulate him.

His smile faded as his computer spat out the readings Acting Captain Spock had asked for.

"Keptin, grawitational sensors are off ze scale. If my calculations are correct, zhey're creating a singularity zat will consume ze planet."

It only took a moment for Spock to comprehend what Chekov was saying. "They're creating a black hole at the center of Vulcan?"

Chekov nodded. "Yes."

"How long does the planet have?"

Chekov hesitated, his eyes sympathetic. "Minutes, sir. Minutes."

Spock leapt to his feet and issued curt commands as he headed to the turbolift, finishing with, "Chekov, you have the conn."

"Aye!" Chekov agreed readily. He did wonder why both Pike and Spock had elected to leave him in charge when there were other, older and more experienced, officers who outranked him on the bridge — but he had to admit it felt good to be entrusted with the responsibility.

 _"Kirk to_ Enterprise _, beam us out of here."_

 _"Stand by, locking on to your signal,"_ said the woman at the transporter control.

 _Almost done,_ Chekov thought to himself.

That, of course, was when things spiralled out of control. Chekov's sensors trilled madly, warning him that the drill was being retracted, and the transporter technician spoke up in warning.

 _"I can't lock on to them. Don't move, don't move!"_

Chekov's blood froze as he watched the gold dot teeter at the very edge of the shaking platform, before it plummeted downwards.

 _Hikaru!_

The next few seconds seemed to happen in slow motion. Kirk's blue dot dived off the platform, seeking the gold and sticking to it once they connected. The conjoined signals jerked to a brief halt before resuming their deadly freefall.

Chekov felt like screaming. _Why don't they have their chutes?!_

 _"Kirk to_ Enterprise _! We're falling without a chute! Beam us up!"_

Chekov forced himself to calm down. Sulu and Kirk's situation was dire, but it wasn't fatal. They had transporter capabilities back up; all it would take was a readjustment of the algorithms and they could save —

 _"I'm trying! I can't lock on to your signal, you're moving too fast!"_

 _Вот дерьмо!_ Chekov cursed. Another complication. But, wait…he looked closer at the numbers, mind moving as fast as Sulu and Kirk were falling — it was not complicated at all!

"I can do zat," he breathed, realization crashing into him. "I can do zat!" _I can save Hikaru!_ "Take ze conn!"

He didn't bother addressing anyone in particular, and he didn't wait to see who answered; he took off as fast as he could, racing through corridors with the speed he'd used to win the Academy 40k.

"Move!" he exclaimed to whoever got in his way. "Move, move, move, _move_!" His feet thundered, his heart pounded, his brilliant brain had only a single, overpowering purpose: _Save Hikaru._

He reached the transporter room and practically yanked the technician from the controls. "Give me manual control, I can lock on!"

 _"Beam us up!"_

There was no part of Chekov's brain he could spare to wonder why it was only Kirk and not Sulu calling desperately for help; all the Russian's concentration was on the life-saving equations in front of him. He worked at lightning speed, his focus razor-sharp in its intensity — and all the while he was silently pleading with his best friend to wait for him, to give him time.

"Enterprise _, where are you?!"_

"Hold on, hold on, hold on!" Chekov cried. _Hold on, Hikaru!_ His fingers worked the joystick wildly, attempting to lock the cursor onto Sulu's and Kirk's falling signals, like an insanely high-stakes claw machine.

 _"Now! Now! Now! Do it now!"_ Kirk's voice was truly panicked now, and that made Chekov panic. How close were they to the unforgiving ground now? Would his calculations be enough?

He still couldn't lock on.

Chekov desperately skimmed through the numbers, looking for the magic figure. _Just a bit more, 'Karu, give me just a bit more time!_

 _"Now! Now! Now!"_

"Hold on! Hold on!" He finally hit on the right formula and immediately keyed it in. "Compensating grawitational pull, aaaand…"

The computer locked on to their signals. The transporter energized.

"Gotcha!"

He fretfully watched the pad as the dematerialization process began, twitching impatiently for the first glimpse of Sulu's and Kirk's physical forms. It was incredibly close, but if he'd been fast enough, they should both be fine. _Sulu_ should be fine.

If he _hadn't_ been in time…but no, he had to have been. The alternative was unthinkable.

 _Please, please,_ Chekov begged.

The two men solidified suddenly, crashing onto the transporter with the remnants of their kinetic energy Chekov had not been able to eliminate from his calculations.

Chekov jumped to his feet, grinning widely and feeling giddy with relief. The Russian phrase slipped out unthinkingly. _"Ё-моё!"_

Sulu laboriously lifted his head and looked around, as if making sure he was really on the Enterprise. He muttered a thanks to Kirk before he found Chekov's eager gaze, but there was no time for either of the friends to say anything before Spock loped into the transporter room and announced that he was beaming to the surface.

"We need to get back to the bridge," Kirk said after Spock dematerialized.

"I zhink I need to stay here," Chekov said simply.

"Yeah," Kirk agreed. "Spock will probably need you if he's gonna get back here in one piece. Thanks, by the way. I owe you one."

Chekov smiled lightly. "Eet was my pleasure, Kirk."

Kirk grinned back as he made to leave. "Sulu?"

"Yeah, coming." Sulu stopped to give Chekov's shoulder a grateful squeeze. "Thank you, Pavel," he said sincerely.

"You are all right?"

"I'm fine."

"Sulu!" Kirk called.

Both Sulu and Chekov had a lot more to say, but both knew they would have to wait until the crisis was over. The two best friends exchanged a final wordless glance before Sulu followed after Kirk and Chekov turned his attention back to the transporter.

The sheer gladness of saving Sulu's life would stay with Chekov for the rest of that crazy, stressful day. Even after he lost Amanda Grayson and returned morosely to the bridge, unable to look Spock in the eye, what would keep him together for the remainder of the _Narada_ crisis would be the comforting knowledge that if he looked over to his left, he would see his best friend.

Later, when he had the chance to reflect on everything, Chekov would realize that he had, in fact, acted on sheer impulse during the drill incident. He truly had not been thinking at all when he abandoned his post on the bridge and all but flew to the transporter room; had never once stopped to consider that he was not a trained transporter technician, that he was relying purely on his ability to do quick maths to save Sulu and Kirk. If he'd failed — if he'd missed even one number in his hasty mental calculations — Starfleet could have quite rightly blamed him for the deaths of two of their officers. They would have seen his thoughtless interruption as detrimental to the actual technician's attempts to lock on; Chekov might even have been faced with disciplinary action for manslaughter.

But Chekov had learned a thing or two from Hikaru Sulu. Sometimes you really couldn't stop to think about consequences, because then you might not do anything, and a situation you could have helped would fall apart. Chekov would realize that if he'd hesitated even for a fraction of a second before racing to the transporter, Sulu and Kirk would not still be alive. And he would come to the conclusion that maybe, just maybe, Sulu had the right idea.

For now, however, as he waited for Spock's request to beam up, Chekov was simply happy that his impulsive best friend would have the chance to plow headfirst into more madcap adventures.

* * *

 _ **A/N: Second chapter will be posted soon.  
**_


	2. Dedicatedly Impulsive

**_A/N: Here's the second chapter, as promised._**

* * *

The first time Sulu met Pavel Chekov, the kid was getting beat up by a bunch of idiots who were too dumb to be in Starfleet. Sulu had had trouble with those same cadets before, and he wasn't going to stand for a 15-year-old getting pummelled for whatever reason, so naturally he jumped right in and showed the three bullies just why the board had deemed him proficient enough to found the Academy's European Swordsmanship Club. At the time, he'd marvelled that Chekov, despite plainly having no combat training, was actually attempting to put up a fight; and though Sulu didn't understand half the words coming from his mouth — because they were a mix of English and Russian — it was pretty obvious that the kid was heaping verbal abuse on his attackers.

That was how Sulu learned Chekov held an indomitable spirit within that slender frame.

It was only later, when Sulu was cradling his broken fingers, listening to a severe lecture and wondering if he was about to be expelled, that he discovered Chekov also possessed a spine of pure steel. The teenager marched into Admiral Barnett's office and told the Head of Starfleet Academy in respectful, but absolutely unyielding terms, that Sulu had been helping him and that the only ones at fault were the three bullies. To make his point even clearer, Chekov had unflinchingly listed every single one of the injuries he sustained from the hostile cadets, and pointed out that he would have been much worse off if it hadn't been for Sulu. He'd even managed to insinuate — _without_ insubordination, which was what made it so amazing — that if Barnett punished Sulu for defending him, he would be establishing to the entire future generation of cadets that Starfleet condoned oppression and brutality.

Chekov's articulate argument had Barnett revising his lecture to a commendation for 'upholding the values of Starfleet by protecting an innocent'. Sulu was still sentenced to a week of polishing cadet boots for the undesirable way he'd gone about said protecting, but it was nothing short of fantastic how a 15-year-old cadet had made the Chief Commandant of Starfleet Academy back down.

Sulu found himself intrigued by Chekov, so he deliberately sought him out at various intervals — partly to ensure that no one else was giving the kid trouble, mostly to get to know him a bit better. Five days after the fight, Chekov unexpectedly parked himself at Sulu's table during lunch, and they progressed from there.

As their friendship grew, Sulu learned other things about Pavel Chekov. For example, he learned that Chekov was incredibly bright. He already knew the Russian teen had to be some kind of prodigy for him to be at Starfleet so young, but Chekov's sheer _genius_ astounded him the first time they debated a problem in astrophysics. Sulu was defending the traditional view and Chekov was arguing the merits of a daring experiment, and they got so loud they were kicked out of the library.

He learned that Chekov was inordinately proud of anything to do with Russia. The younger man talked often about his homeland, in such glowing terms you'd think the frigid country could become comfortably cozy from the warmth of Chekov's praises alone. Sulu also had plenty of opportunity to bear witness Chekov's claims that various technologies, foods, and ideas had originated in Russia. For someone as widely read as Chekov, it was truly remarkable how little the navigator seemed to know of global history — though Sulu had a sneaking suspicion that Chekov _did_ know, and only declared that everything was from Russia to mess with people.

He learned that Chekov had a mischievous streak. The young Russian never participated in anything so unsophisticated as a prank, but he had his own unique way of tricking people. Chekov was thoroughly bilingual, perfectly fluent in both Russian and Standard — even if he spoke the latter with a heavy accent — and as the incident with Admiral Barnett had demonstrated, he was fully capable of marshalling his words and his expressions so skillfully that people didn't even realize they'd been had until after it was too late to do anything about it. It was the eyes, Sulu thought. Those bright, green, innocent eyes — combined with his youth and his intelligence — could take in anyone, even those who _knew_ what Chekov was doing.

Above all, however, Sulu learned that Pavel Chekov was dedicated. Quite unlike Sulu, who tended to build bridges only when he needed to cross water, Chekov consistently thought several steps ahead. He'd decided early on that he wanted to join Starfleet as a navigator, and had taken advanced mathematics and astronomy all through his accelerated high school and university in preparation. When faced with a problem, Chekov's instinct was to carefully examine it from all angles and then go about methodically resolving it in what he had deemed to be the most effective way. He was patient and diligent, and he rarely did anything without thinking it through.

This type of total commitment applied to nearly all parts of Chekov's life, but was most evident in two areas: his work and the people he cared about. Chekov took great delight in his work, seeing it as the zone where he excelled; he knew, without being arrogant about it, that he was one of Starfleet's best.

He was also a wonderful friend. Chekov was considerate and empathetic, and his spirited pep talk after Sulu failed the _Kobayashi Maru_ was probably the only reason why the pilot was still in Command Track. Chekov made friends easily and genuinely cared for people on a personal level, sometimes at the cost of his own well-being. It was why, when it came time for his own _Kobayashi Maru_ , Chekov essentially pulled a George Kirk — he went ahead with the rescue mission, then opted to self-destruct his ship to distract the Klingons after ejecting his crew in escape pods.

It was also why Sulu knew Chekov would be feeling extremely low right now. They'd all had a manic, gruelling day, and everyone was feeling strung out and emotionally raw from the tragic losses inflicted by the Nero — but Sulu was willing to bet that Chekov had it worse than a lot of people (not counting the Vulcans, of course). He'd _seen_ the look on the navigator's face when he returned from the transporter room — so utterly miserable and agonized, with tears held in only by sheer force of will. It had scared the crap out of Sulu, and all he'd been able to get out of his friend was a broken admission that he'd 'lost her'.

Sulu had found out soon after that Commander Spock's mother had died on Vulcan, but he hadn't put the pieces together until after the overextended alpha shift ended about an hour ago; there simply hadn't been time to think about anything until after the _Enterprise_ , straining and shuddering and missing her warp core, had safely escaped the black hole.

Once Sulu realized who exactly Chekov had failed to save at the transporter, he knew that, exhausted though he was, he couldn't leave his friend alone tonight. Chekov had done a magnificent job of keeping himself together throughout the day, remaining remarkably steady as he came up with their plan to sneak up on Nero and helped Sulu steer the ship in and out of trouble — but now that the crisis was over and he was no longer required to be on duty, he would break. And the selfless kid wouldn't ask, but Sulu knew he would need him to be there to pick up the pieces.

With a sigh, Sulu went hunting for Chekov's quarters. It was only when he reached the relevant door that he realized Chekov might not be alone. The _Enterprise_ was carrying almost five times her usual passenger complement, with Vulcans outnumbering the crew four to one, and resources were stretched thinner than butter on bread. Space, already restricted on a starship, was limited even further because sections of the ship had had to be sealed off due to damage. Domestic admin had an ongoing nightmare trying to figure out who could sleep where; single rooms were a luxury that could be afforded to only the highest priority officers and guests. Being a last-minute replacement who hadn't been assigned official quarters beforehand (his current status as head pilot notwithstanding), Sulu himself would not fall into this category; as Chief Navigator, Chekov presumably _would_ — but when Sulu read the crew designation next to the door, there were four other names under _Ensign Chekov, Pavel A_.

Sulu tapped the door chime, and a second later the doors slid open.

"Lieutenant Sulu!" The four men in the room, all ensigns, stood to attention.

"At ease," said Sulu, and they dropped their salutes. "I'm looking for Ensign Chekov; do any of you know where he is?"

The tallest of the ensigns offered, "I think I heard him mention something about heading down to Engineering."

"Thanks." Sulu backed out of the room and found the nearest terminal. Engineering was a big place, and he wasn't about to go searching blindly through the machinery-cluttered walkways without knowing where he was going. "Computer, locate Ensign Chekov."

He found Chekov exactly where the readout said he would be, in a small, out-of-the-way corner that was isolated from the rest of the deck. The teenager was sitting on a sleeping bag — where the heck he'd even found the thing was a mystery — next to some large, humming machine, and staring out the tiny viewhole in the wall.

"Pavel, what are you doing here?"

Chekov blinked up at him. "I came down to help Meester Scott wiz repairs."

"And how did that translate to you camping out next to a — what is this thing?" Sulu frowned at the machine.

"Eet ees a secondary thermal generator — eet helps to control on-ship temperatures. Makes zis spot quite warm and comfortable."

Sulu eyed the sleeping bag. "You're not…actually planning on sleeping down here, are you?"

Chekov shrugged.

"Pavel, you have a room," Sulu pointed out.

"Eet ees crowded. Zhey need ze space."

" _Everywhere's_ crowded."

"I do not mind."

"Of course you don't." Sulu sighed. It was so _Pavel_. "Mind if I join you?"

Chekov wordlessly scooted closer to the generator, allowing Sulu just enough space to squeeze between him and the wall. His friend's listlessness set off alarm bells in Sulu's head. Chekov was normally vibrant and exuberant, but now he looked even younger than his seventeen years, lost and timid.

"Hey." Sulu touched his shoulder. "It wasn't your fault."

Chekov's blank expression didn't change. "Yes, eet was."

"No, Pavel, it wasn't. You did everything you could —"

"And eet wasn't enough." Chekov's voice broke. "I've been going zhrough all ze numbers, Hikaru, over and over…but I cannot find where I went _wrong_."

"Nothing was wrong, Pavel, I'm sure your maths was perfect —"

"No." Chekov stubbornly shook his head. "If eet was perfect, Commander Spock's mozher would be alive." He still refused to look Sulu in the eye, but the pilot saw when the tears started finally spilling over. "I made a mistake, Hikaru. I newer should haff tried to man ze transporter. I obwiously didn't know what I was doing…" The first sob escaped the ensign's slight frame, and Sulu immediately placed soothing hands on his shoulders.

"Pavel — hey, look at me, look at me — you _can't_ blame yourself," he said earnestly. "I know computers with less mathematical ability than you — trust me, if _you_ couldn't save Amanda Grayson, no one could have."

"I lost her," Chekov murmured miserably.

"I know," Sulu admitted, because no matter what he said, he couldn't change that fact. "But you saved Spock, and the rest of the Vulcan elders. You saved _me_. Me and Kirk."

"Zat was lucky."

Sulu snorted. "Luck had nothing to do with it. We were falling to our deaths, and the transporter technician couldn't lock on to us. But then you stepped in — you with your amazing brain and incredible determination — and suddenly we were back on the _Enterprise_. You can't tell me that was a fluke — nobody would believe it."

One of Chekov's hands suddenly shot out to clutch at Sulu's shirt. "I was scared, Hikaru. So wery scared…I zhought I would lose you. So many times on zat mission, I zhought you were going to die."

"I'm here, Pavel." Sulu drew the youth close, and felt the tremors running through his best friend's body.

"We — we lost… _so many_ …M-Mitchell and…and Kelso…Tormolen…all of Wulcan…"

Sulu felt moisture prick his own eyes as the full magnitude of today's tragedies sank in. Mitchell and Kelso had been personal friends, close to both him and Chekov. He hadn't had time to mourn them earlier, but now there was nothing holding him back.

"It's okay," he told Chekov. "Let it out."

So Chekov did. He let the shaky dam he'd built over the course of the day break, and he cried. He cried for Amanda Grayson, the woman he couldn't save; he cried for Commander Spock, reaching out in despair for his mother; he cried for Vulcan, the loss of billions of people; he cried for the friends and classmates they'd lost to the _Narada_ ; and he cried because he knew, in the future, there would be other times when his best wasn't enough, when even his most meticulous calculations wouldn't work as they should.

Through it all, Sulu held him, and shared in his grief.

After some time, Chekov sniffed, swallowing the last of his sobs, and straightened.

"I haff ruined your shirt," he noted apologetically.

"Don't worry about it. Tear stains are a lot easier to clean than Romulan blood."

The offhand joke had the intended effect; Chekov snorted wetly and managed a tiny smile. "Zhank you, Hikaru."

"Anytime, Pavel." Sulu examined his friend and noticed that there was still something not quite right about that smile. "You want to talk about it?"

Chekov sighed heavily. He should have known Sulu would not let it go that easily.

"You can't keep it inside, Pavel, it'll eat you up," Sulu advised. "I don't intend to let that happen."

For a moment Chekov looked away, but then he began to speak. "I zhought I could do eet. After I saved you and Keptin Kirk…I zhought I could save anyone. But zhen I…" He ducked his head in shame. "I _lost_ her, Hikaru. I lost Spock's mozher. He will newer forgive me."

"Yeah, you're probably right."

Chekov jerked his head up, shocked betrayal in his eyes at Sulu's uncharacteristically callous dismissal.

"He won't forgive you because there's nothing _to_ forgive, Pavel," Sulu explained patiently. "Trust me, Spock probably hasn't even _thought_ to imagine that you're blaming yourself. He would say it's illogical."

Chekov frowned. "I do not zhink zat —"

"Want me to ask him right now?" To Chekov's horror, Sulu was holding a comm device.

 _"Nyet!"_ he practically yelped, snatching the comm away. Sulu couldn't help himself; he snickered. Chekov glowered at him. "Zat was not funny!"

"It kind of was. You should've seen your face, Pavel."

"Zis ees supposed to make me feel better?" Chekov fumed. "You are doing an awful job, Hikaru."

"I'm trying to make a point. Why didn't you want me to comm Spock?"

"Eet ees unnecessary! Eet would bozher him."

"On the contrary, I think he'd want to know that a member of the crew thinks he's responsible for his mother's death. Why is it unnecessary?"

"Because…because I know what he would say!"

"And what _would_ he say?"

"He would say zat I'm being silly, zat ze only person to blame ees Nero, zat ze transporter ees not meant to compensate for sudden movements during beaming…" Chekov trailed off, catching the knowing glint in Sulu's eyes.

"You see?" the pilot said softly. "You _do_ know it wasn't your fault. Why do you insist on blaming yourself?"

Chekov bit his lip. "Because…I should haff been able to save her," he finally admitted. "If I had been faster wiz my maths, I could have compensated for her fall. What ees ze point of being a genius if I cannot save people?"

 _Ah,_ thought Sulu. They'd finally reached the root of the matter. Chekov's dedication was such that he expected perfection from himself. This was the first time he'd fallen short of the standard he'd set — whether consciously or unconsciously — and it was making him doubt himself. Sulu had to nip this in the bud, like Chekov had done for him after his _Kobayashi Maru_.

"Pavel, you may be a genius, and the most brilliant mathematician I've ever met, but you're not perfect."

Chekov scoffed. "I know zat."

"I don't think you do. I've seen the way you work, Pavel — it's crazy how many things you do at once. And do you know what you do when you make a mistake? You silently berate yourself in Russian — don't think I haven't noticed — and you attack whatever you did wrong as if it personally offended you. No, let me finish," Sulu said firmly as Chekov opened his mouth. "You're not perfect, Pavel, and although your best is a damn sight better than anyone else's, it won't always be enough — and that's okay. That's _okay_ , because even though what you try won't always come through, when it _does_ work, it's pretty freaking _amazing_."

Chekov blinked, slightly stunned by the passionate force behind Sulu's words. "Zat was…wery eloquent, Hikaru," he said finally.

Sulu smirked. "I had an excellent teacher."

This time Chekov's smile was genuine. "Ze best," he agreed. "Okay. I understand your point."

"Good, because there's one other thing I wanted to tell you." Sulu suppressed a yawn and ran his fingers through his hair, serious once more. "You know, when I was falling, I figured, that was it. I really thought I was going to die." He exhaled and looked at Chekov. "That's why I didn't want to say anything. Kirk was in my ear yelling for the _Enterprise_ to save us, but I knew you would hear me if I started shouting too, and I didn't want to put that guilt on you when we smashed into the ground. I should have known you'd come up with something."

Chekov lightly touched his arm. "I am wery glad I did. I…" He struggled with the words for a few seconds, but when he continued, there was a new light of resolve in his green eyes. "I was not good enough to save Amanda Grayson," he said candidly, finally accepting it. "But I _was_ good enough to save you — and Keptin Kirk — and I suppose…that ees pretty good, _da_?"

"Are you kidding?" said Sulu incredulously. "Pavel, you saved my _life_. I'll owe you forever for that. And you saved Kirk's life — and without Kirk we'd probably all be dead and Earth would be gone. _And_ you came up with the plan that allowed us to sneak up on Nero so we could destroy the drill, save Captain Pike, and defeat the _Narada_. Pretty good? No, Pavel. _Awesome_ is more like it. I'd be surprised if Starfleet doesn't give you a commendation and bump you up to lieutenant."

"I am sure what you did on ze drill was equally awesome," Chekov returned. "You must tell me about it…but tomorrow," he added, aware of how weary his friend looked, and how much more heavily Sulu was leaning against the wall now, half-lulled to sleep by the humming of the machine. As usual, the pilot had given no thought to how long this conversation would take, or how draining it would be for both of them. Chekov doubted if Sulu had even bothered to find out where he was supposed to be sleeping before coming to look for him.

"Yeah…tomorrow." Sulu couldn't hide his yawn this time. "I should probably go look for my room…no idea where they put me, actually, can you believe it?"

Chekov could. And he noticed that despite his friend's words, Sulu wasn't showing any sign of moving from his spot. He didn't think the helmsman would make it to his hastily-assigned and sure-to-be-crammed quarters before he collapsed.

Chekov hesitated only a moment longer, then he reached behind the thermal generator and pulled out a second sleeping bag. Somehow, it didn't surprise Sulu.

"Will you stay?"

Sulu didn't even think.

"Of course."

* * *

 _ **A/N: That's a wrap! But I'm not done in the Star Trek fandom yet - I'm currently working on another, longer story - more of an ensemble crew piece this time - and I'm pretty sure I'll be posting that soon. In the meantime, do tell me what you think!**_


End file.
